2015 Edition - Building on student teams made up of students from ENSAPLV, in partnership with students from CNAM and ENSAM, the objective of this intensive workshop is to develop an innovative and buildable design for an ecological house made from wood in Hokkaido, northern Japan as part of the sixth International Lixil competition. It offers students the opportunity to design a building taking the environmental risks and changes into account, and questioning the notions of architectural features. As the winning project is built on the LIXIL campus in Japan, the innovative technical and construction aspects must be thoroughly covered.

This project was funded following the call for projects issued by the Paris Nouveaux Mondes programme in 2015.

Project description:

Following the selection of ENSAPLV as one of the three finalists in the fifth international competition run by the Japanese LIXIL foundation in 2015, it will be possible to participate in the next session of this prestigious international university competition. By invitation only (just 10 universities per year), it will run from November 2015 to April 2016. The objective of this intensive workshop is to develop an innovative and buildable design for an ecological house made from wood in Hokkaido, northern Japan. It offers students the opportunity to design a building taking the environmental risks and changes into account. It allows them to reflect on the concepts of habitability, qualities, and comfort on the basis of the environment. Depending on the annual theme chosen by the Japanese organizers, the work will consist of discussing and exploring various aspects of environmentally friendly design in architecture, and their application in the specific environment of this northern region of Japan. As the winning project is built on the LIXIL campus in Japan, the innovative technical and construction aspects must be thoroughly covered.

We intend to enter this competition next year by offering a response in which not just ENSAPLV but also heSam will be in the spotlight. In this respect the objective is to get the teams of students from ENSAPLV to work in a studio in partnership with students from ENSAM and CNAM.

Content:

The international LIXIL architecture university competition is organised by the LIXIL JS Foundation. Every year, several schools of architecture research laboratories from all over the world are invited to explore environmentally friendly architectural solutions in order to create an experimental house on the “MEMU Meadows” site in the area of Taiki-cho in Hokkaido. The students who win this competition will then be invited to participate in designing and building the project. Six experimental houses have now been built on the site:
– “Même” (Kengo Kuma and associates)
– “Bamboo Frame House” (Nagaoka Institute of Design)
– “A Recipe to Live” (Nobuaki Furuya Laboratory, Waseda University)
– “Barn House” (co+labo Radovic, Keio University)
– “Horizon House” (Mark Mulligan Laboratory, Harvard University)
– “Nest We Grow” (College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley).
“Inverted House” (The Oslo School of Architecture and Design) is in the design phase and will be built this summer before being inaugurated next November.

The module has several phases from an outline design to establishing the details for completing the project with a view to the competition. It associates students from three institutions ENSAPLV, ENSAM, and CNAM.

At ENSAPLV, it will be closely supported by the school’s research team: Architecture, Environment, Landscape. The intensive course (IP) is aimed at students enrolled mainly on master courses.

At ENSAM (Arts et Métiers ParisTech), it will mainly rely on:
– The TREFLE (Transferts-Fluides-Energétique) department of the research laboratory I2M (Institut de Mécanique et Ingénierie de Bordeaux), UMR 5295. The skills developed on the Bordeaux site in terms of international sustainable building competitions, combined with the selection of students on the undergraduate and / or Master 2 “Engineering Materials and Processes for Sustainable Development”, will bring to the project energy performance appropriate for the timber frame construction with low intrinsic inertia.
– The MUB team (Matériaux et Usinage Bois) at LaBoMaP (Laboratoire Bourguignon des Matériaux et Procédés) of the Campus de Cluny (EA 3633), for optimizing the mechanical performance of solid wood and wood engineering (reconstituted wood), the structural design and the manufacture of prototype parts. Students from third year of “wood skills” and the first year of “trades” (wood, building and energy of the future, and digital modelling and advanced reality) will participate in the project as part of their skills or design projects.

At CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers), it will rely on the construction team (structures, works, sustainable construction, geotechnical engineering, development and the environment). Students will be selected on their application, mastery of communication in English and on interview from across the CNAM network (apprentices of the 3 engineering construction courses, carpenters on the DEUST / LP and building trades programme, auditors on the construction engineering degree in continuing education).